Systems and methods for providing timely and relevant social media updates from persons related to a person of interest in a video simultaneously with the video

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided herein for identifying an identity of the person of interest in a live video, accessing his profile, and identifying closely related persons. Control circuitry may then identify a subset of the persons who are near a location where the live video is being filmed, compare the identities of each person of the subset to entries of a database of social media profiles, and identify respective social media components that correspond to each person of the subset. Finally, the control circuitry may determine whether a person of the subset has modified a social media component within a predefined period of time, and, in response to determining that the person of the subset has modified the respective social media component within the predefined period of time, provide information relating to the modification of the respective social media component.

BACKGROUND

The prevalence of social media as a supplemental source for information,such as news, commentary, and the like, has grown in recent years.Related art systems and methods describe supplementing media viewed onvarious devices, such as a television, with social media. Thisinformation, however, is often not timely and is not relevant to aportion of a video presently being displayed.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are described herein for presenting relevant andtimely social chatter by a featured person in a live video. For example,if a live broadcast of an award ceremony, such as the Academy Awards, isbeing displayed, and a celebrity, such as Leonardo DiCaprio is depictedin a corresponding live video, the systems and methods described hereinmay present relevant and timely social chatter by Leonardo DiCaprio.Timely and relevant social chatter may be social chatter initiated byLeonardo DiCaprio immediately before, during, or immediately after theAcademy Awards were filmed, and may be filtered to only include thoughtsthat are relevant to the Academy Awards ceremony.

Systems and methods are also provided herein for providing timely andrelevant social chatter simultaneously with a live broadcast frompersons who are closely related to a person of interest. For example, ifa brother of a quarterback of a football team is viewing a football gamethat the quarterback is playing in, and the brother provides socialchatter about the football game, this timely and relevant social chattermay be generated for display simultaneously with the broadcast of thefootball game.

Systems and methods are also provided herein for providing timely andrelevant social chatter simultaneously with a live broadcast from aperson of interest who is initially unknown. For example, if theidentity of a person who has been zoomed in on in a live broadcast forten seconds is not known, the systems and methods disclosed herein maycrowd source the identity of the person by locating trending topics thatoccurred during or substantially near the time that the person waszoomed in on, and may interpolate the identity of the person therefrom.

To this end, in some aspects of the disclosure, control circuitry of auser equipment may execute a media guidance application that detects aperson of interest being displayed in a live video. In some embodiments,the media guidance application, when detecting the person of interestbeing displayed in the live video, may determine that a person ispresent in the live video for a threshold amount of time. For example,if a person in an awards ceremony, such as the Academy Awards ceremony,is zoomed in on for five seconds, that person may be determined to be aperson of interest. Thus, in response to determining that the person ispresent in the live video for the threshold amount of time, the mediaguidance application may designate the person as a person of interest.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify anidentity of the person of interest. For example, when identifying theidentity of the person of interest, the media guidance application maycapture an image of the face of the person of interest, identifydistinguishing characteristics of the face of the person of interestusing facial recognition technology, and compare the distinguishingcharacteristics to entries of a database, where each respective entrycorresponds a respective profile of a person to distinguishingcharacteristics of a face of the respective person. Thus, using thesefacial recognition techniques, the media guidance application mayascertain the identity of the person based on a result of the comparingof the distinguishing characteristics to the entries of the database.Following from the example above, the media guidance application maythereby determine that Leonardo DiCaprio is the person of interest.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare theidentity of the person of interest to entries of a database of socialmedia profiles. For example, when the media guidance application iscomparing the identity of the person of interest to entries of thedatabase of social media profiles, the media guidance application mayfirst identify a social media platform, where the database correspondsto the social media platform. For example, Twitter, a well-known socialmedia platform, may be identified or selected, and thus the searching tobe described below may occur on Twitter's databases.

The media guidance application may then search the database for aprofile corresponding to the identity of the person of interest (e.g.,by searching the name “Leonardo DiCaprio” through Twitter's database),and may receive a plurality of results. For example, the results mayinclude people named Leonardo with a different last name from DiCaprio,or spoof accounts that pretend to be Leonardo DiCaprio.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify, basedon the comparing, a social media component that corresponds to theperson of interest. In the example above, where a plurality of resultsare received from the searching, the media guidance application mayidentify a single result of the plurality of results as the social mediacomponent. For example, the media guidance application may compareadditional attributes of the person of interest to content of eachrespective result of the plurality of results (e.g., the fact thatLeonardo DiCaprio is an actor, his age, etc.), and may identify ahighest matching result of the plurality of results based on thecomparing of the additional attributes to the content of each respectiveresult of the plurality of results and designate the highest matchingresult as the single result.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the person of interest has modified the social media componentwithin a predefined period of time. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether the user updated his or her socialmedia component during the live broadcast. In some embodiments, thisdetermination may include identifying a time stamp corresponding tomodification of the social media component, determining whether the timestamp is within the predefined period of time of when the person ofinterest was detected in the live video, and, in response to determiningthat the time stamp is within the predefined period of time when theperson of interest was detected in the live video, determining that theperson of interest has modified the social media component within thepredefined period of time.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the person of interest has modified the social mediacomponent within a predefined period of time, provide informationrelating to a modification of the social media component simultaneouslywith the live video. For example, if Leonardo DiCaprio updated a socialmedia component he maintains on the social media platform Twitter, thisupdate may be generated for display simultaneously with the AcademyAward broadcast.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine, priorto providing the information relating to the modification of the socialmedia c component simultaneously with the live video, whether themodification of the social media component is relevant to the livevideo. For example, if, during the Academy Award ceremony describedabove, Leonardo DiCaprio provides a social media update to his Twitterpage that solely relates to his dog, the modification may be deemed tobe not relevant because it does not bear on the live broadcast video.Thus, the media guidance application may, in response to determiningthat the modification of the social media component is relevant to thelive video, proceed to provide the information relating to themodification of the social media component simultaneously with the livevideo and may, in response to determining that the modification of thesocial media component is not relevant to the live video, refrain fromproceeding to provide the information relating to the modification ofthe social media component simultaneously with the live video.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when determiningwhether the modification of the social media component is relevant tothe live video, may compare data of the modification to data associatedwith the live video, such as the live video's title. The media guidanceapplication may determine whether the data of the modification matchesthe data associated with the live video (e.g., does Leonardo DiCaprio'ssocial media update mention the Academy Awards?), and, in response todetermining that the data of the modification matches the dataassociated with the live video, may determine that the modification ofthe social media component is relevant to the live video. Likewise, themedia guidance application may, in response to determining that the dataof the modification does not match the data associated with the livevideo, determine that the modification of the social media component isnot relevant to the live video.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may continue tomonitor the social media component of the person of interest for furthermodifications for the duration of a broadcast of the live video. Forexample, Leonardo DiCaprio's social media component on Twitter may bemonitored for further updates throughout the live broadcast of theAcademy Awards. The media guidance application may provide the furthermodifications simultaneously with the live video when the furthermodifications are detected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when providing thefurther modifications simultaneously with the live video when thefurther modifications are detected, may determine whether the furthermodifications are relevant to the live video, and may, in response todetermining that the further modifications are relevant to the livevideo, provide the further modifications simultaneously with the livevideo when the further modifications are detected. Likewise, the mediaguidance application may, in response to determining that the furthermodifications are not relevant to the live video, refrain from providingthe further modifications simultaneously with the live video when thefurther modifications are detected.

In some aspects of the disclosure, systems and methods are provided forpresenting relevant and timely social chatter by a person who is closelyrelated to a featured person in a video. In a similar manner asdescribed above, a media guidance application executed by controlcircuitry of a user equipment may detect a person of interest beingdisplayed in a live video, may identify an identity of the person ofinterest, and may access a profile of the person of interest.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify, basedon the profile, a plurality of persons who are closely related to theperson of interest. For example, the media guidance application may,when identifying, based on the profile, the plurality of persons who areclosely related to the person of interest, first identify, from theprofile, persons with whom the person of interest has interacted withwithin a threshold period of time (e.g., persons with whom the person ofinterest has exchanged telephone calls with, SMS messages, social mediaexchanges, and the like). The media guidance application may thendesignate the identified persons as the plurality of persons who areclosely related to the person of interest.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify asubset of the plurality of persons who are geographically proximate to alocation where the live video is being filmed. For example, the mediaguidance application may, when identifying the subset, compare theidentities of each person of the subset to entries of a database ofsocial media profiles. The media guidance application may then identify,based on the comparing, respective social media components thatcorrespond to each person of the subset, and may determine whether arespective person of the subset has modified his or her respectivesocial media component within a predefined period of time. In responseto determining that the person of the subset has modified his or herrespective social media component within the predefined period of time,the media guidance application may provide information relating to amodification of the respective social media component simultaneouslywith the video. In this manner, updates may be limited to closelyrelated persons to the person of interest who are actually in attendanceat an event that is subject to the live video broadcast.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when identifyingthe subset of the plurality of persons who are geographically proximateto the location where the live video is being filmed, may determinewhether a respective global positioning system (“GPS”) device that isoperated by a respective person of the plurality of persons indicatesthat the respective person is proximate to the location where the livevideo is being film, and, in response to determining that the GPS devicethat is operated by the respective person of the plurality of personindicates that the respective person is proximate to the location wherethe live video is being filmed, the media guidance application may addthe respective person to the subset.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when identifying asubset of the plurality of persons who are geographically proximate to alocation where the live video is being filmed, may determine whether arespective person of the plurality of persons is captured in the livevideo, and may, in response to determining that the respective person ofthe plurality of persons is captured in the live video, add therespective person to the subset. For example, if the brother of anathlete who is playing in a sporting event that is being live-broadcastis attending the sporting event, the brother may be added to the subsetso that his social media updates are generated for display with thevideo.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare theidentities of each person of the subset to entries of a database ofsocial media profiles, and may identify, based on the comparing,respective social media components that corresponds to each person ofthe subset. The media guidance application may then determine whether arespective person of the subset has modified his or her respectivesocial media component within a predefined period of time, and may, inresponse to determining that the person of the subset has modified hisor her respective social media component within the predefined period oftime, providing information relating to a modification of the respectivesocial media component simultaneously with the video. Each of theseoperations of the media guidance application are described above andbelow with respect to the person of interest, and will thus not be againdescribed with respect to persons of the subset for brevity.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may continue tomonitor the social media component of the person of the subset forfurther modifications for the duration of a broadcast of the live video.The media guidance application may then provide the furthermodifications simultaneously with the live video when the furthermodifications are detected.

In some aspects of the disclosure, systems and methods are providedherein for presenting relevant and timely social chatter by an unknownperson of interest in a video. For example, if a person in a live videois zoomed in on for a threshold amount of time (e.g., 5 seconds), theperson is likely a person of interest. That person may be unknown tosome databases because that person is not a celebrity. Systems andmethods are disclosed herein to identify the person (e.g., by way ofcrowdsourcing).

To this end, control circuitry of a user equipment may execute a mediaguidance application that detects that a person is displayed in a livevideo for a threshold amount of time, and may determine, based on thedetecting, that the person is a person of interest. These elements maybe performed in any manner described in further detail above and below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may attempt toidentify an identity of the person of interest by comparing attributesof the person of interest to entries of a database. In some embodiments,when the media guidance application is attempting to identify anidentity of the person of interest by comparing attributes of the personof interest to entries of a database, the media guidance application maycapture an image of the face of the person of interest, and may identifydistinguishing characteristics of the face of the person of interestusing facial recognition technology. The media guidance application maythen compare the distinguishing characteristics to the entries of thedatabase, where each respective entry corresponds a respective profileof a person to distinguishing characteristics of a face of therespective person. The media guidance application may then seek a matchbetween the distinguishing characteristics and data of the entries ofthe database.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when determiningthat the attempting has failed, may base the determining on an inabilityto match the attributes to any of the entries of the database. Forexample, if facial characteristics are unknown to the database, then theattempting may fail to yield a match. Thus, in some embodiments, themedia guidance application may determine that the attempting has failedbased on an inability to match the attributes to any of the entries ofthe database. In response to determining that the attempting has failed,the media guidance application may identify broadcast timescorresponding to a period of time in which the person was displayed inthe live video.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identifytrending topics in a social media space that relate to the live video.For example, the media guidance application, when identifying thetrending topics in the social media space that relate to the live video,may first identify a plurality of topics that have received a thresholdamount of commentary during the broadcast times. The media guidanceapplication may then compare attributes of the live video to attributesof the plurality of topics, and identify a topic of the plurality oftopics that best matches the attributes of the live video.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may ascertain anidentity of the person of interest based on the trending topics. Forexample, the media guidance application, when ascertaining the identityof the person of interest based on the trending topics, may parsemessages of the topic that best match the attributes of the live videofor an indicia of the identity of the person of interest, and maydetermine the identity of the person of interest based on content of theparsed messages. For example, social media comments may be parsed for acommon mentioned name of a person.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare theidentity of the person of interest to a database of social mediaprofiles, may identify, based on the comparing, a social media componentthat corresponds to the person of interest, may determine whether theperson of interest has modified the social media component within apredefined period of time, and, in response to determining that theperson of interest has modified the social media component within apredefined period of time, may provide information relating to amodification of the social media component simultaneously with thevideo.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 depicts a user equipment that is generating for simultaneousdisplay both a media asset and social media updates relating to themedia asset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in providing socialmedia updates from a person of interest in a live video, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for ensuring that socialmedia updates that are provided with live video are relevant to the livevideo, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in providing socialmedia updates from a person who is closely related to a person ofinterest of a live video, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in resolving who aperson of interest is when the person of interest is unknown to adatabase, and then providing social media updates from the person ofinterest, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in resolving whoan unknown person of interest is based on trending topics that areassociated with a live video, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 depicts a user equipment that is generating for simultaneousdisplay both a media asset and social media updates relating to themedia asset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. FIG.1 depicts user equipment 100, which may comprise control circuitry thatexecutes a media guidance application. The functionality of userequipment, control circuitry, and the media guidance application isdescribed in further detail below with respect to FIGS. 2-5. The mediaguidance application may generate for display media asset 102, which maybe a live video broadcast. Media asset 102 may comprise live media,on-demand media, reruns, or any other linear or non-linear media, as isdescribed in greater detail below with respect to FIGS. 2-5. Moreover,while the terms “live video,” “live broadcast video,” and the like areused throughout the specification, these uses are merely illustrative,and may be used interchangeably with any other media asset as definedhere and with respect to FIGS. 2-5. While depicted as displayed on adisplay of user equipment 100, media asset 102 may be displayed on anyother user equipment. Also depicted in FIG. 1 is social media update104, social media update 106, person of interest 108, closely relatedperson 110, and ticker 112, each of which will be described in greaterdetail in the paragraphs below.

In some aspects of the disclosure, the control circuitry of userequipment 100 may execute a media guidance application that detects aperson of interest being displayed in a live video. For example, themedia guidance application of user equipment 100 may detect person ofinterest 108. Person of interest 108 may be detected based on anyemphasis of person 108, such as person 108 being in the foreground,person 108 being displayed for a sufficient period of time, person 108being a celebrity, textual data corresponding to person 108 (e.g.,ticker 112) being generated for display simultaneously with person 108,and the like. As will be described below, person of interest 108, afterbeing identified, may be determined by the media guidance application tobe or to not be a person of interest to a user of user equipment 100based on the user's profile, and thus may be qualified or disqualifiedfrom being labeled a person of interest with respect to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when detectingperson of interest 108 in media asset 102 (which may be live video), maydetermine that person 108 is present in the live video for a thresholdamount of time. For example, if a person in media asset 102, such as theAcademy Awards ceremony, is zoomed in on for five seconds, that personmay be determined to be a person of interest. Thus, in response todetermining that the person is present in the live video for thethreshold amount of time, the media guidance application may designatethe person as person of interest 108.

In some embodiments, person 108 may be designated as a person ofinterest if a person is known to be a celebrity. For example, if facialrecognition technology recognizes characteristics of person of interest108 as corresponding to characteristics of a celebrity, the person maybe designated as person of interest 108. Similarly, if textual dataindicates that a person is a celebrity, the person may be designated asperson of interest 108.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify anidentity of person of interest 108. Any known means of identifying theidentity of a person in media asset 102 may be used. For example, facialrecognition techniques (described further below), relying on auxiliaryinformation (e.g., textual information displayed in media asset 102 orVBI information or other metadata associated with media asset 102), andthe like may be used to identify the identity of person of interest 108.

In some embodiments, when identifying the identity of person of interest108, the media guidance application may capture an image of the face ofperson of interest 108. For example, the media guidance application mayparse out a frame of media asset 102 where the face of person ofinterest 108 is particularly prominent. The media guidance applicationmay identify distinguishing characteristics of the face of person ofinterest 108 using facial recognition technology. For example, the mediaguidance application may identify eye color, hair color, skin color, andthe like of person 108.

The media guidance application may then compare the distinguishingcharacteristics to entries of a database, where each respective entrycorresponds a respective profile of a person to distinguishingcharacteristics of a face of the respective person. For example, themedia guidance application may search for a database entry that reflectsa person with a combination of different distinguishing characteristicsthat was captured from person of interest 108's face. Thus, using thesefacial recognition techniques, the media guidance application mayascertain the identity of the person based on a result of the comparingof the distinguishing characteristics to the entries of the database.Following from the example above, the media guidance application maythereby determine that Leonardo DiCaprio is the person of interest.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare theidentity of person of interest 108 to entries of a database of socialmedia profiles. The term identity, as used herein, refers to anyidentifying feature of a person. For example, the person's name,likeness, distinguishing facial characteristics, telephone number,address, and the like, and any combination or portion thereof, may bereferred to by the term identity.

In some embodiments, when the media guidance application is comparingthe identity of the person of interest to entries of the database ofsocial media profiles, the media guidance application may first identifya social media platform, where the database corresponds to the socialmedia platform. For example, Twitter, a well-known social mediaplatform, may be identified or selected, and thus the searching to bedescribed below may occur on Twitter's databases. The database maycorrespond to any known social media platform, or may correspond to anaggregation of several known social media platforms. Databasefunctionality is discussed in further detail below with respect to FIGS.2-5.

The media guidance application may then search the database for aprofile corresponding to the identity of the person of interest, and mayreceive a plurality of results. For example, the name “LeonardoDiCaprio” may be searched, or an image of Leonardo DiCaprio's face maydirectly be used to search for a match. Following the example of thename “Leonardo DiCaprio” being searched, the results may include peoplenamed Leonardo with a different last name from DiCaprio, or people withthe last name DiCaprio who do not have the first name Leonardo, or spoofaccounts that pretend to be Leonardo DiCaprio, or the like.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify, basedon the comparing, a social media component that corresponds to theperson of interest. The term “social media component,” as used herein,refers to a personal space that a user curates or maintains on a socialmedia platform. For example, a social media platform such as FaceBook orInstagram may enable a user to maintain a “wall” or “space” where theuser can add text, pictures, and other media. Any user-customizable areaoffered by a social media platform is within the scope of the term“social media component.” For example, the best match or highest rankedmatch in the searching may be determined to be a social media component(e.g., a FaceBook page, where FaceBook is a well-known social mediaplatform) of person of interest 108. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application may determine the social media component of personof interest 108 by detecting indicia that the social media platform hasverified the identity of the person who owns the social media component.For example, some social media platforms like FaceBook and Twitter allowcelebrity users to verify their identity directly with the company inorder to ensure that the celebrity's account is not being spoofed by amalicious user, and this indicia may be detectable by the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, when a plurality of results are received from thesearching, the media guidance application may identify a single resultof the plurality of results as the social media component. For example,the media guidance application may not be able to definitively resolvewhich result of a plurality of results from searching “LeonardoDiCaprio” is truly a social media component by the celebrity LeonardoDiCaprio. The media guidance application thus may compare additionalattributes of person of interest 108 (e.g., age, eye color, interests,etc.) to content of each respective result of the plurality of results(e.g., the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio is an actor, his age, etc.), andmay identify a highest matching result of the plurality of results basedon the comparing of the additional attributes to the content of eachrespective result of the plurality of results and designate the highestmatching result as the single result.

In some embodiments, after person of interest 108 is identified, themedia guidance application may determine whether the user of userequipment 100 cares to learn of social media updates relating to personof interest 108. For example, the media guidance application may compareinformation of the user's profile to information about the identity ofperson of interest 108. On the basis of this comparison, the mediaguidance application may determine that the user does like, or does notlike, person of interest 108. If the media guidance applicationdetermines that the user does like person of interest 108, the mediaguidance application may proceed to provide social media update 104 tothe user. If the media guidance application determines that the userdoes not like person of interest 108, the media guidance application maydisqualify person of interest 108 as a person of interest, and mayrefrain from generating for display social media update 104 about personof interest 108.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether person of interest 108 has modified the social media componentwithin a predefined period of time. The media guidance application may,for example, determine whether person of interest 108 updated his or hersocial media component within a few hours of a live broadcast of mediaasset 102 (either before or after the live broadcast). The mediaguidance application may monitor the social media component of person ofinterest 108 for updates during the predetermined period of time. Asused herein the predefined period of time (or similarly, a thresholdamount of time) refers to an amount of time that is defaulted to, set byan editor at a content provider, or set by a user. This predefined time,when reached, is used to trigger a corresponding action, which isdescribed in connection with the predefined period of time or threshold.In this case, the predefined period time, when reached, triggers adetermination that a social media component's modification is timelywith respect to a live broadcast of media asset 102.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatduring a live broadcast of media asset 102, person of interest 108accesses a user equipment (e.g., a smartphone, a smart watch, or atablet). The media guidance application may query the social mediacomponent upon detecting such access to determine whether person ofinterest 108 was modifying his or her social media component whenaccessing his or her user equipment.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the user updated his or her social media component during thelive broadcast by identifying a time stamp corresponding to modificationof the social media component. For example, the media guidanceapplication may identify that Leonardo DiCaprio updated his Twitter pageat 8:04 pm. The media guidance application may then determine whetherthe time stamp is within the predefined period of time of when theperson of interest was detected in the live video (e.g., during abroadcast time of the Academy Awards, which is broadcast from 7:00 pm to11:00 pm). The media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the time stamp is within the predefined period of timewhen the person of interest was detected in the live video, determinethat person of interest 108 (e.g., Leonardo DiCaprio) has modified thesocial media component within the predefined period of time.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the person of interest has modified the social mediacomponent within a predefined period of time, provide informationrelating to a modification of the social media component simultaneouslywith the live video. For example, if Leonardo DiCaprio updated a socialmedia component he maintains on the social media platform Twitter duringthe broadcast of the Academy Awards, social media update 104 may begenerated for display simultaneously with the Academy Award broadcast.Social media update 104 may include any textual, video, photographic,audio, or other multimedia data that originated with person of interest108. Social media update 104 may comprise multiple social media updates,or may dynamically update as person of interest 108 continues to modifyhis or her social media component. In some embodiments, person ofinterest 108 may change over time, or there may be multiple persons ofinterest 108, and thus social media update 104 may include multiplesocial media updates, and the multiple social media updates may be frommultiple persons of interest 108.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine, priorto providing the information relating to the modification of the socialmedia component simultaneously with the live video (e.g., social mediaupdate 104), whether the modification of the social media component isrelevant to the live video. If social media update 104 comprises textualdata, the media guidance application may compare the textual data tometadata of media asset 102 (e.g., determine whether there is a matchbetween words of the textual data and the metadata). For example, if,during the Academy Award ceremony described above, Leonardo DiCaprioprovides a social media update to his Twitter page that states “I barelymade it! There was so much traffic on the way to the Awards!,” the mediaguidance application may detect that the word “Awards” matches the title“Academy Awards,” and thus may determine that the social media update isrelevant and should thus be populated in social media update 104.

As a contrary example, the media guidance application may detect asocial media modification that solely relates to Leonardo DiCaprio'sdog, and may thus determine that the modification is not relevantbecause it does not bear on the live broadcast video. Thus, the mediaguidance application may, in response to determining that themodification of the social media component is relevant to the livevideo, proceed to provide the information relating to the modificationof the social media component simultaneously with the live video andmay, in response to determining that the modification of the socialmedia component is not relevant to the live video, refrain fromproceeding to provide the information relating to the modification ofthe social media component simultaneously with the live video.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may continue tomonitor the social media component of person of interest 108 for furthersocial media updates 104 for the duration of a broadcast of the livevideo. For example, the media guidance application may continue tomonitor Leonardo DiCaprio's social media component on Twitter forfurther updates throughout the live broadcast of the Academy Awards. Inorder to perform the monitoring, the media guidance application mayperiodically query the social media platform to learn whether anyfurther social media update 104 has been received. Alternatively, thesocial media platform may push social media update 104 to user equipment100 upon receiving further social media updates from person of interest108. The media guidance application may generate for display the furthermodifications simultaneously with the live video (e.g., by way of socialmedia update 104) when the further modifications are detected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, when providingsocial media update 104 simultaneously with the live video when thefurther modifications are detected, determine whether the furthermodifications are relevant to the live video, and may, in response todetermining that the further modifications are relevant to the livevideo, provide the further modifications simultaneously with the livevideo when the further modifications are detected. The media guidanceapplication may determine relevance in any manner described above orbelow. Likewise, the media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the further modifications are not relevant to the livevideo, refrain from providing the further modifications simultaneouslywith the live video when the further modifications are detected.

In some aspects of the disclosure, systems and methods are provided forpresenting relevant and timely social chatter by a person who is closelyrelated to a featured person in a video. For example, closely relatedperson 110 may be closely related to person of interest 108. As used inthis disclosure, a closely related person, such as closely relatedperson 110, is deemed to be closely related to person of interest 108 ifclosely related person 110 has a sufficient relationship with person ofinterest 108. A sufficient relationship may be familial. The mediaguidance application may determine whether the relationship issufficient based on data of a database, such as indicia of familialstatus, of friendship (e.g., on a social media platform), indicia ofchatter between person of interest 108 and closely related person 110(e.g., by way of SMS, MMS, social media chatter, and the like), and thelike. Determining relationships between parties is described in furtherdetail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,753,185, issued on Jul. 17, 2014, thedisclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify, basedon the profile, a plurality of persons who are closely related to personof interest 108. For example, in some embodiments, media asset 102 mayinvolve a person of interest 108 who is not capable of providing socialmedia update 104. Person of interest 108, may, e.g., be an athlete whois playing a sport, and thus does not have access to user equipment.Thus, the social media component modification of closely related person110 may instead be used to populate social media updates (e.g., by wayof social media update 106). Social media update 106 operates insubstantially the same manner as social media update 104, but isprovided from closely related person 110 instead of person of interest108.

In some embodiments, in order to choose closely related person 110, themedia guidance application may identify a subset of the people who areclosely related to person of interest 108 who are geographicallyproximate to a location where media asset 102 is being filmed. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine whether arespective global positioning system (“GPS”) device that is operated bya person who is closely related to person of interest 108 indicates thatthe person is proximate to the location where the live video is beingfilm, and, in response to determining that the GPS device that isoperated by the respective person of the plurality of person indicatesthat the respective person is proximate to the location where the livevideo is being filmed, the media guidance application may add therespective person to the subset. Thus, the media guidance applicationmay determine a subset of closely related persons to person of interest108 who also are proximate to person of interest 108.

The media guidance application may then compare the identities of eachperson of the subset to entries of a database of social media profiles.The media guidance application may then identify, based on thecomparing, respective social media components that correspond to eachperson of the subset, and may determine whether a respective person ofthe subset has modified his or her respective social media componentwithin a predefined period of time. This comparing may be performed in asimilar manner to that described with respect to person of interest 108above and below. In response to determining that the person of thesubset has modified his or her respective social media component withinthe predefined period of time, the media guidance application maydesignate that person a closely related person 110, and may provideinformation relating to a modification of the respective social mediacomponent simultaneously with the video (e.g., by way of social mediaupdate 106).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify closelyrelated person 110 using facial recognition technology (e.g., similar tothat described above). The media guidance application may perform facialrecognition on persons captured by the video of media asset 102, forexample, and may determine an identity of a given captured person usingthe processes and systems described above. The media guidanceapplication may then determine whether a given captured person is aperson closely related to person of interest 108 based on the identity,also using the systems and processes described above.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may not haveprocessing power to identify each person captured in media asset 102.Thus, the media guidance application may reduce its processing burden bylimiting the number of detected persons whom it will identify. The mediaguidance application may, for example, limit its identificationprocesses to persons who are depicted continuously for a minimumthreshold of time (e.g., 3 seconds), and may only determine whetherpeople depicted for that threshold are closely related to person ofinterest 108.

Alternatively, or additionally, the media guidance application may limitthe number of persons for whom facial processing is performed byinitiating facial recognition processes when certain conditions arepresent. For example, in a sporting event, it is likelier that a personwho is closely related to an athlete playing in the sporting event issitting in premium seating. Thus, the media guidance application maylimit facial recognition processing for the purposes of determining aclosely related person to person of interest 108 to persons seated inpremium seating. Any logical condition may be set to trigger facialprocessing, and any combination of conditions may be set as well.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare theidentities of each person of the subset to entries of a database ofsocial media profiles, may identify, based on the comparing, respectivesocial media components that corresponds to each closely related person110, may determine whether a respective closely related person hasmodified his or her respective social media component within apredefined period of time, and may, in response to determining that theperson of the subset has modified his or her respective social mediacomponent within the predefined period of time, provide social mediaupdate 106 simultaneously with the video. Each of these operations ofthe media guidance application are described above and below withrespect to person of interest 108, and will thus not be again describedwith respect to persons of the subset for brevity.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may continue tomonitor the social media component of closely related person 110 forfurther modifications for the duration of a broadcast of media asset102. The media guidance application may then continually provide socialmedia update 106 simultaneously with the live video when furthermodifications of a social media component of closely related person 110occur. All other activities described in the foregoing that occur withrespect to person of interest 108 equally apply to closely relatedperson 110.

In some aspects of the disclosure, systems and methods are providedherein for presenting relevant and timely social chatter by an unknownperson of interest in a video. For example, if a person in a live videois zoomed in on for a threshold amount of time (e.g., 5 seconds), theperson is likely a person of interest. That person may be unknown tosome databases because that person is not a celebrity. Systems andmethods are disclosed herein to identify the person (e.g., by way ofcrowdsourcing).

To this end, control circuitry of a user equipment may execute a mediaguidance application that detects that a person is displayed in a livevideo (e.g., media asset 102) for a threshold amount of time, and maydetermine, based on the detecting, that the person is a person ofinterest (e.g., person of interest 108). These elements may be performedin any manner described above and below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may attempt toidentify an identity of person of interest 108 by comparing attributesof the person of interest to entries of a database (through, e.g., theoperations described above and below). In some embodiments, when themedia guidance application is attempting to identify an identity ofperson of interest 108 by comparing attributes of the person of interestto entries of a database, the media guidance application may capture animage of the face of person of interest 108, and may identifydistinguishing characteristics of the face of the person of interestusing facial recognition technology. The media guidance application maythen compare the distinguishing characteristics to the entries of thedatabase, where each respective entry corresponds a respective profileof a person to distinguishing characteristics of a face of therespective person. The media guidance application may then seek a matchbetween the distinguishing characteristics and data of the entries ofthe database. This may be performed by any system or process describedabove and below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthere is no match when trying to identify person of interest 108, as themedia guidance application may fail to match the attributes to any ofthe entries of the database. In such a circumstance, the media guidanceapplication may conclude that person of interest 108 is unknown to thedatabases the media guidance application has access to. Thus, the mediaguidance application may turn to alternative sources to learn theidentity of person of interest 108, such as crowdsourcing, as will bedescribed below.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may rely oncrowdsourcing operations to identify the identity of person of interest108. To this end, the media guidance application may identify trendingtopics in a social media space that relate to media asset 102. Trendingtopics, as used in this disclosure, are topics that are referred to orcited by a high number of users of social media platforms at a givenpoint or period in time.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when identifyingthe trending topics in the social media space that relate to the livevideo, may first identify a plurality of topics that have received athreshold amount of commentary during the broadcast times (or near thebroadcast times) of media asset 102. For example, if the Academy Awardswas broadcast from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, the media guidance applicationmay identify topics that were trending between 6:55 pm and 10:05 pm. Themedia guidance application may then compare attributes of media asset102 to attributes of the plurality of topics, and identify a topic ofthe plurality of topics that best matches the attributes of the livevideo. For example, the media guidance application may compare metadatacorresponding to media asset 102 (e.g., title, actors, participants,director, etc.) to textual data of the topic and identify topics withtextual data that at least partially match some metadata correspondingto media asset 102. These matching topics may be utilized to determinean identity of person of interest 108.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may ascertain anidentity of the person of interest based on the trending topics. Forexample, the media guidance application, when ascertaining the identityof the person of interest based on the trending topics, may parsemessages corresponding to the topic that best match the attributes ofthe live video for an indicia of the identity of the person of interest,and may determine the identity of the person of interest based oncontent of the parsed messages. For example, social media comments maybe parsed for a common mentioned name of a person. Following from theAcademy Awards example, if messages commonly refer to the topic of“Awards” (e.g., by adding a hash tag next to the word Awards within themessage (i.e., #Awards)), and if the messages correspond to a period oftime that unknown person of interest 108 was broadcast (e.g., “wow Inever thought I would see John Doe in the #Awards!”), then the mediaguidance application may be able to resolve that John Doe is person ofinterest 108.

In some embodiments, after person of interest 108 is identified, themedia guidance application may compare the identity of person ofinterest 108 to a database of social media profiles, identify, based onthe comparing, a social media component that corresponds to person ofinterest 108, determine whether person of interest 108 has modified thesocial media component within a predefined period of time, and, inresponse to determining that the person of interest has modified thesocial media component within a predefined period of time, providesocial media update 104 simultaneously with the video, in any mannerdescribed above or below.

In some embodiments, media asset 102 may be a re-run or a broadcast of anon-live video. Systems and methods may be used to determine whether aperson of interest 108 in media asset 102 is nonetheless generatingsocial media update 104 that relates to media asset 102. For example,person of interest 108 may know that a movie that person of interest 108acted in will be broadcast at a certain time, and may provide a runningcommentary on media asset 102 while it is broadcast, or may provideother related social media updates about media asset 102. These socialmedia updates may appear as social media update 104.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 2-3 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 2-3 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 2-3 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 2 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 200arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 200 may include grid 202 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 204, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 206, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 202 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 208, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 210. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 210 may be provided inprogram information region 212. Region 212 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 202 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 214, recorded content listing 216, andInternet content listing 218. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 200 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings214, 216, and 218 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 202 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 202. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 220. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 220.)

Display 200 may also include video region 222, and options region 226.Video region 222 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 222 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 202. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 226 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 226 may be part of display 200 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 226 may concern features related to program listings in grid 202or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 5. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 3. Video mosaic display 300 includes selectable options 302 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 300, television listings option 304 isselected, thus providing listings 306, 308, 310, and 312 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 300 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 308 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 314 and text portion 316.Media portion 314 and/or text portion 316 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 314 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 300 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 306 islarger than listings 308, 310, and 312), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 4 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 400. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 5.User equipment device 400 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 402. I/O path 402 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 404, which includesprocessing circuitry 406 and storage 408. Control circuitry 404 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 402. I/O path 402 may connect control circuitry 404 (andspecifically processing circuitry 406) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 404 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 406. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 404 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 408). Specifically, control circuitry 404 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 404 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 404 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 404 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 5). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 408 thatis part of control circuitry 404. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 408 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 5, may be used to supplementstorage 408 or instead of storage 408.

Control circuitry 404 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 404 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 400. Circuitry 404 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 408 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 400, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 408.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 404 using user inputinterface 410. User input interface 410 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 412 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400. For example, display 412 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 410may be integrated with or combined with display 412. Display 412 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 412 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 412 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 412.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry404. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 404.Speakers 414 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 412 may be played throughspeakers 414. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers414.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 400. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage408), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 404 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 408 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 404 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 410. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 410 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 400 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 400. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 404 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 404) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 400. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 400.Equipment device 400 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 410 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 400 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 410.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 400 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 404). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 404 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 404. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 404. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 400 of FIG. 4 can be implemented in system 500 ofFIG. 5 as user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,wireless user communications device 506, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, or awireless user communications device 506. For example, user televisionequipment 502 may, like some user computer equipment 504, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 504 may, like some television equipment 502, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 504, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 506.

In system 500, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 5 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 502, user computer equipment 504, wireless user communicationsdevice 506) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 514.Namely, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, andwireless user communications device 506 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 514 via communications paths 508, 510, and 512, respectively.Communications network 514 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 508, 510, and 512 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 512 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 5 it is awireless path and paths 508 and 510 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 508, 510, and 512, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 514.

System 500 includes content source 516 and media guidance data source518 coupled to communications network 514 via communication paths 520and 522, respectively. Paths 520 and 522 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 508, 510,and 512. Communications with the content source 516 and media guidancedata source 518 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 516 and 518 withuser equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 are shown as throughcommunications network 514, in some embodiments, sources 516 and 518 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 508, 510, and 512.

Content source 516 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 516 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 516 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 516 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 518 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 518may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 518 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 518 mayprovide user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 408, and executedby control circuitry 404 of a user equipment device 400. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 404 of user equipment device 400and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 518) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 518), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 518 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices502, 504, and 506 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 500 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 5.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 514.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 516 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 502 and user computer equipment 504may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 506 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 514. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 516 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 518. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, and wirelessuser communications device 506. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 504 or wireless usercommunications device 506 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 504. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 514. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 4.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in providing socialmedia updates from a person of interest in a live video, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. Process 600 begins at 602,where control circuitry 404 of user equipment 100 may execute a mediaguidance application that detects a person of interest (e.g., person ofinterest 108) being displayed in a live video. User equipment 100 mayhave the same functionality as any or all of user television equipment502, user computer equipment 504, and wireless user communicationsdevice 506. While FIG. 6 consistently refers to live video, this ismerely illustrative, and any media asset 102 is replacing the term “livevideo” is contemplated in the scope of the disclosure. Media asset 102may be displayed by way of display 412 of user equipment 100. The mannerin which person of interest 108 may be detected is described in theforegoing. For example, media asset 102 may be the Academy Awards, andperson of interest 108 may be Leonardo DiCaprio, who may be determinedto be a person of interest because the cameras focused on him for asufficient amount of time.

Process 600 may continue to 604, where the media guidance applicationmay identify an identity of the person of interest (e.g., by any mannerdescribed above or below). For example, the media guidance applicationmay identify that the person of interest is Leonardo DiCaprio. Process600 may then continue to 606, where the media guidance application maycompare the identity of person of interest 108 to entries of a databaseof social media profiles. The database (and any other database describedherein) may be stored locally to user equipment 100 (e.g., on storage408 of user equipment 100) or remote from user equipment 100 (e.g., atmedia guidance data source 518 or media content source 516, either ofwhich are accessible by way of communications network 514).

Process 600 may then continue to 608, where the media guidanceapplication may identify, based on the comparing, a social mediacomponent that corresponds to the person of interest. For example, themedia guidance application may identify Leonardo DiCaprio's Twitter pageor FaceBook page.

Process 600 may continue to 610, where the media guidance applicationmay determine whether the person of interest has modified his or hersocial media component within a predefined period of time. For example,the media guidance application may determine whether Leonardo DiCaprioupdated his Facebook page during the broadcast of the Academy Awards. Ifsuch a modification was made, process 600 may continue to 612, and ifsuch a modification was not made, process 600 may continue to 614.

At 612, the media guidance application may provide information relatingto a modification of the social media component simultaneously with thelive video (e.g., the media guidance application may generate fordisplay social media update 104). At 614, the media guidance applicationmay refrain from providing information relating to a modification of thesocial media component simultaneously with the live video.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for ensuring that socialmedia updates that are provided with live video are relevant to the livevideo, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure (e.g., inaccordance with the elements of process 600). Process 700 begins at 702,where the media guidance application may begin a process for ensuringinformation that is provided that relates to a modification of thesocial media component is relevant to the live video that it issimultaneously displayed with. Process 700 continues to 704, where themedia guidance application may compare data of the modification to dataassociated with the live video. For example, the media guidanceapplication may parse textual data of a social media componentmodification by Leonardo DiCaprio that says “I barely made it! There wasso much traffic on the way to the Awards!” and may compare each word ofthe textual data to, e.g., metadata associated with the Academy Awards,such as the title.

Process 700 may continue to 706, where the media guidance applicationdetermines whether the data of the modification match the dataassociated with the live video. For example, following from the exampleof 704, the media guidance application may determine that there is amatch, because both the textual data and the title of media asset 102have the word “Awards.” If there is a match, process 700 may continue to708, where the media guidance application may determine that themodification of the social media component is relevant to the livevideo. Process 700 may then continue to 710, where the media guidanceapplication may proceed to provide the information relating to themodification of the social media component simultaneously with the livevideo (e.g., may generate for display social media update 104). If,however, there is no match, process 700 may continue to 712, where themedia guidance application may determine that the modification of thesocial media component is not relevant to the live video, and maycontinue to 714, where the media guidance application may refrain fromproceeding to provide the information relating to the modification ofthe social media component simultaneously with the live video.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in providing socialmedia updates from a person who is closely related to a person ofinterest of a live video, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. Process 800 begins at 802, where the media guidanceapplication may detect a person of interest being displayed in a livevideo. This may be performed in the same manner as 602. Process 800 maycontinue to 804, where the media guidance application may identify anidentity of the person of interest. 804 may be performed in the samemanner as 604.

Process 800 may then continue to 806, where the media guidanceapplication may access a profile of the person of interest. For example,if person of interest 108 is Leonardo DiCaprio, the media guidanceapplication may access a profile of Leonardo DiCaprio (e.g., a socialmedia profile corresponding to a social media profile, or a different,broader profile that profiles activities, interests, and the likes ofthe user). This is described in further detail in the foregoing.

Process 800 may continue to 808, where the media guidance applicationmay identify, based on the profile, a plurality of persons who areclosely related to the person of interest. For example, the mediaguidance application may identify Leonardo DiCaprio's family membersbased on the profile. This may be performed in any manner described inthe foregoing.

Process 800 may continue to 810, where the media guidance applicationmay identify a subset of the plurality of persons who are geographicallyproximate to a location where the live video is being filmed. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that LeonardoDiCaprio's mother and sister are present at the Academy Awards, and thismay be determined in any manner described in the foregoing.

Process 800 may continue to 812, where the media guidance applicationmay compare the identities of each person of the subset to entries of adatabase of social media profiles, and then to 814, where the mediaguidance application may identify, based on the comparing, respectivesocial media components that corresponds to each person of the subset.For example, the media guidance application may identify LeonardoDiCaprio's mother's FaceBook page, and Leonardo DiCaprio's Twitter page,based on the comparison.

Process 800 may then continue to 816, where the media guidanceapplication may determine whether a respective person of the subset hasmodified his or her respective social media component within apredefined period of time. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine that Leonardo DiCaprio's mother has modified her FaceBookpage. If the media guidance application determines that someone (closelyrelated person 110) has in fact updated his or her respective socialmedia component within the predefined period of time, process 800 maycontinue to 818, where the media guidance application may provideinformation relating to a modification of the respective social mediacomponent (e.g., social media update 106) simultaneously with the video.If, however, the media guidance application determines that no one hasupdated a respective social media component within the predefined periodof time, process 800 may continue to 820, where the media guidanceapplication may refrain from providing information relating to amodification of the respective social media component simultaneouslywith the video.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in resolving who aperson of interest is when the person of interest is unknown to adatabase, and then providing social media updates from the person ofinterest, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process900 begins at 902, where the media guidance application may detect thata person is displayed in a live video for a threshold amount of time.This may be performed in a manner consistent with 602.

Process 900 may then continue to 904, where the media guidanceapplication may determine, based on the detecting, that the person is aperson of interest. For example, process 900 may determine that personof interest 108 has been zoomed in on in the broadcast of media asset102 for a threshold period of time. Process 900 may then continue to906, where the media guidance application may attempt to identify anidentity of the person of interest by comparing attributes of the personof interest to entries of a database. As this attempt may fail, at 908,the media guidance application may determine that the attempting hasfailed based on an inability to match the attributes to any of theentries of the database.

At 910, the media guidance application may, in response to determiningthat the attempting has failed, identify broadcast times correspondingto a period of time in which the person was displayed in the live video.For example, the media guidance application may determine that mediaasset 102 is the Academy Awards, which was broadcast from 7:00 pm to10:00 pm.

Process 900 may continue to 912, where the media guidance applicationmay identify trending topics in a social media space that relate to thelive video. For example, the topic “Awards,” as indicated by a hash tag(e.g., “#Awards”). Process 900 may continue to 914, where the mediaguidance application may ascertain an identity of the person of interestbased on the trending topics. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that messages including the topic “Awards” atthe time in which the unknown person of interest 108 was displayed inmedia asset 102 often refer to a person “John Doe.” The media guidanceapplication may determine therefrom that John Doe is the person ofinterest.

Process 600 may continue to 916, where the media guidance applicationmay compare the identity of the person of interest to a database ofsocial media profiles, and then to 918, where the media guidanceapplication may identify, based on the comparing, a social mediacomponent that corresponds to the person of interest. Process 900 maythen continue to 920, where the media guidance application may determinewhether the person of interest has modified the social media componentwithin a predefined period of time. If the determination is in theaffirmative, process 900 may continue to 922, and if the determinationis in the negative, process 900 may proceed to 924. At 922, the mediaguidance application may provide information relating to a modificationof the social media component simultaneously with the video, and at 924,the media guidance application may refrain from providing informationrelating to a modification of the social media component simultaneouslywith the video. Elements 916-924 correspond to elements 606-614 ofprocess 600 and thus may be executed consistent with the mannerdescribed with respect to process 600.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in resolving whoan unknown person of interest is based on trending topics that areassociated with a live video, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. Process 1000 begins at 1002, where the media guidanceapplication may identify a plurality of topics that have received athreshold amount of commentary during the broadcast times. For example,the media guidance application may only consider topics that havereceived at least 100,000 comments during the broadcast of the AcademyAwards to reduce the amount of noise to be parsed through.

Process 1000 may continue to 1004, where the media guidance applicationmay compare attributes of the live video to attributes of the pluralityof topics. For example, textual data of the topic (e.g., #Award) may becompared to, e.g., a title of media asset 102 (“Academy Awards”) toyield an affirmative comparison. Process 1000 may continue to 1006,where the media guidance application may identify a topic of theplurality of topics that best matches the attributes of the live video(e.g., “Awards”).

Process 1000 may then continue to 1008, where the media guidanceapplication may parse messages of the topic that best match theattributes of the live video for indicia of the identity of the personof interest. For example, the media guidance application may identifythat John Doe was mentioned in many messages with the topic #Awards.Process 1000 may thus continue to 1010, where the media guidanceapplication may determine the identity of the person of interest basedon content of the parsed messages (e.g., determine that John Doe isperson of interest 108).

It should be noted that processes 600-1000 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 1 and4-5. For example, any of processes 600-1000 may be executed by controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by control circuitry implemented onuser equipment 502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5) in order to ensure seamlessaccess to restricted media. In addition, one or more steps of processes600-1000 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps ofany other process or embodiment.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of each of FIGS. 6-10may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition,the steps and descriptions described in relation to FIGS. 6-10 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, each of these steps may be performed inany order or in parallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lagor increase the speed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should benoted that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation toFIGS. 1 and 4-5 could be used to perform one or more of the steps inFIGS. 6-10.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present invention may be embodied in a computer programproduct that includes a computer-usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer-usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM device, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer-readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent invention may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, determining an identity of a person of interest may beperformed, e.g., by processing circuitry 406 of FIG. 4. The processingcircuitry, for instance, may be a general purpose processor, acustomized integrated circuit (e.g., an ASIC), or a field-programmablegate array (FPGA) within user equipment 400, media content source 516,or media guidance data source 518. For example, a profile, as describedherein, may be stored in, and retrieved from, storage 408 of FIG. 4, ormedia guidance data source 518 of FIG. 5. Furthermore, processingcircuitry, or a computer program, may update profile settings associatedwith a user, such as a user's favorite celebrities, stored withinstorage 408 of FIG. 4 or media guidance data source 518 of FIG. 5.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to,or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

While some portions of this disclosure may make reference to“convention” or “related art,” any such reference is merely for thepurpose of providing context to the invention(s) of the instantdisclosure, and does not form any admission as to what constitutes thestate of the art.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for presenting relevant and timelysocial chatter by a person who is closely related to a featured personin a video, the method comprising: detecting a person of interest beingdisplayed in a live video; identifying an identity of the person ofinterest; accessing a profile of the person of interest; identifying,based on the profile, a plurality of persons who are closely related tothe person of interest; querying respective user equipment of eachrespective person of the plurality of persons who are closely related tothe person of interest for respective locations of the respective userequipment; receiving, based on the querying, a respective location foreach respective user equipment; comparing each respective location withthe location of the live video; based on the comparing, identifying asubset of the plurality of persons who are geographically proximate to alocation where the live video is being filmed; comparing the identitiesof each person of the subset to entries of a database of social mediaprofiles; identifying, based on the comparing, respective social mediacomponents that correspond to each person of the subset; determiningwhether a respective person of the subset has modified his or herrespective social media component within a predefined period of time;and in response to determining that the person of the subset hasmodified his or her respective social media component within thepredefined period of time, providing information relating to amodification of the respective social media component simultaneouslywith the video.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the personof interest being displayed in the live video comprises: determiningthat a candidate person is present in the live video for a thresholdamount of time; and in response to determining that the candidate personis present in the live video for the threshold amount of time,designating the candidate person as the person of interest.
 3. Themethod of claim 1, wherein identifying the identity of the person ofinterest comprises: capturing an image of the face of the person ofinterest; identifying distinguishing characteristics of the face of theperson of interest using facial recognition technology; comparing thedistinguishing characteristics to entries of a database, wherein eachrespective entry corresponds a respective profile of a person todistinguishing characteristics of a face of the respective person; andascertaining the identity of the person based on a result of thecomparing of the distinguishing characteristics to the entries of thedatabase.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying, based on theprofile, the plurality of persons who are closely related to the personof interest comprises: identifying, from the profile, persons with whomthe person of interest has interacted with within a threshold period oftime; and designating the identified persons as the plurality of personswho are closely related to the person of interest.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein identifying the subset of the plurality of persons whoare geographically proximate to the location where the live video isbeing filmed comprises: determining whether a respective globalpositioning system (“GPS”) device that is operated by a respectiveperson of the plurality of persons indicates that the respective personis proximate to the location where the live video is being filmed; andin response to determining that the GPS device that is operated by therespective person of the plurality of person indicates that therespective person is proximate to the location where the live video isbeing filmed, adding the respective person to the subset.
 6. The methodof claim 1, wherein identifying the subset of the plurality of personswho are geographically proximate to the location where the live video isbeing filmed comprises: determining whether a respective person of theplurality of persons is captured in the live video; and in response todetermining that the respective person of the plurality of persons iscaptured in the live video, adding the respective person to the subset.7. The method of claim 1, wherein comparing the identities of eachperson of the subset to the entries of the database of social mediaprofiles comprises: identifying a social media platform, wherein thedatabase corresponds to the social media platform; searching thedatabase for a respective profile corresponding to a respective identityof each person of the subset; and receiving a respective plurality ofresults for a respective person of the subset, wherein identifying,based on the comparing, the social media component that corresponds tothe respective person of the subset comprises identifying a respectivesingle result of the respective plurality of results as the respectivesocial media component corresponding to the person of the sub set. 8.The method of claim 7, wherein identifying the respective single resultof the plurality of results as the respective social media component forthe respective person of the subset comprises: comparing additionalattributes of the respective person of the subset to respective contentof each respective result of the respective plurality of results;identifying a respective highest matching result of the respectiveplurality of results based on the comparing of the additional attributesto the respective content of each respective result of the respectiveplurality of results; and designating the respective highest matchingresult as the respective single result.
 9. The method of claim 1,wherein determining whether a respective person of the subset hasmodified his or her respective social media component within apredefined period of time comprises: identifying a time stampcorresponding to modification of the respective social media component;determining whether the time stamp is within the predefined period oftime of when the respective person of interest was detected in the livevideo; and in response to determining that the time stamp is within thepredefined period of time when the person of interest was detected inthe live video, determining that the respective person of the subset hasmodified the social media component within the predefined period oftime.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising: continuing tomonitor the social media component of the person of the subset forfurther modifications for the duration of a broadcast of the live video;and providing the further modifications simultaneously with the livevideo when the further modifications are detected.
 11. A system forpresenting relevant and timely social chatter by a person who is closelyrelated to a featured person in a video, the system comprising:communications circuitry; and control circuitry configured to: detect aperson of interest being displayed in a live video; identify an identityof the person of interest; access, using the communications circuitry, aprofile of the person of interest; identify, based on the profile, aplurality of persons who are closely related to the person of interest;query respective user equipment of each respective person of theplurality of persons who are closely related to the person of interestfor respective locations of the respective user equipment; receive,based on the querying, a respective location for each respective userequipment; compare each respective location with the location of thelive video; based on the comparing, identify a subset of the pluralityof persons who are geographically proximate to a location where the livevideo is being filmed; compare, using the communications circuitry, theidentities of each person of the subset to entries of a database ofsocial media profiles; identify, based on the comparing, respectivesocial media components that correspond to each person of the subset;determine whether a respective person of the subset has modified his orher respective social media component within a predefined period oftime; and in response to determining that the person of the subset hasmodified his or her respective social media component within thepredefined period of time, provide information relating to amodification of the respective social media component simultaneouslywith the video.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured, when detecting the person of interestbeing displayed in the live video, to: determine that a candidate personis present in the live video for a threshold amount of time; and inresponse to determining that the candidate person is present in the livevideo for the threshold amount of time, designate the candidate personas the person of interest.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein thecontrol circuitry is further configured, when identifying the identityof the person of interest, to: capture an image of the face of theperson of interest; identify distinguishing characteristics of the faceof the person of interest using facial recognition technology; comparethe distinguishing characteristics to entries of a database, whereineach respective entry corresponds a respective profile of a person todistinguishing characteristics of a face of the respective person; andascertain the identity of the person based on a result of the comparingof the distinguishing characteristics to the entries of the database.14. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured, when identifying, based on the profile, the plurality ofpersons who are closely related to the person of interest, to: identify,from the profile, persons with whom the person of interest hasinteracted with within a threshold period of time; and designate theidentified persons as the plurality of persons who are closely relatedto the person of interest.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein thecontrol circuitry is further configured, when identifying the subset ofthe plurality of persons who are geographically proximate to thelocation where the live video is being filmed, to: determine whether arespective global positioning system (“GPS”) device that is operated bya respective person of the plurality of persons indicates that therespective person is proximate to the location where the live video isbeing filmed; and in response to determining that the GPS device that isoperated by the respective person of the plurality of person indicatesthat the respective person is proximate to the location where the livevideo is being filmed, add the respective person to the subset.
 16. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured,when identifying the subset of the plurality of persons who aregeographically proximate to the location where the live video is beingfilmed, to: determine whether a respective person of the plurality ofpersons is captured in the live video; and in response to determiningthat the respective person of the plurality of persons is captured inthe live video, add the respective person to the subset.
 17. The systemof claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured, whencomparing the identities of each person of the subset to the entries ofthe database of social media profiles, to: identify a social mediaplatform, wherein the database corresponds to the social media platform;search the database for a respective profile corresponding to arespective identity of each person of the subset; and receive arespective plurality of results for a respective person of the subset,wherein the control circuitry is further configured, when identifying,based on the comparing, the social media component that corresponds tothe respective person of the subset, to identify a respective singleresult of the respective plurality of results as the respective socialmedia component corresponding to the person of the subset.
 18. Thesystem of claim 17, wherein the control circuitry is further configured,when identifying the respective single result of the plurality ofresults as the respective social media component for the respectiveperson of the subset, to: compare additional attributes of therespective person of the subset to respective content of each respectiveresult of the respective plurality of results; identify a respectivehighest matching result of the respective plurality of results based onthe comparing of the additional attributes to the respective content ofeach respective result of the respective plurality of results; anddesignate the respective highest matching result as the respectivesingle result.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitryis further configured, when determining whether a respective person ofthe subset has modified his or her respective social media componentwithin a predefined period of time, to: identify a time stampcorresponding to modification of the respective social media component;determine whether the time stamp is within the predefined period of timeof when the respective person of interest was detected in the livevideo; and in response to determining that the time stamp is within thepredefined period of time when the person of interest was detected inthe live video, determine that the respective person of the subset hasmodified the social media component within the predefined period oftime.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured to: continue to monitor the social media component ofthe person of the subset for further modifications for the duration of abroadcast of the live video; and provide the further modificationssimultaneously with the live video when the further modifications aredetected.